Nationalism (A Speech)
To this august assemblage, I extend my heartiest greetings. On this occasion, I truly mean the warmth that I have thus expressed. For the topic I am about to speak on is apt to invite infamy, concern as it does the one entity that we as Indians are naturally inclined to revere: our nation. Conversations on so dear a front can be delicate, and it is only in congenial and liberal environs that they can be held.
Seven decades have passed since our civilization-state commenced a new chapter in its life: that of a nation-state in the definition of the Westphalian system. The national struggle that closed the chapter of colonialism and commenced this chapter of independence threatens to efface from public memory. That our nation has been revivified with optimism in regard to its potential ascent to prominence in the twenty-first century — the much-purported India’s Century — cannot justifiably be viewed in isolation from the era of our national struggle.
Much has been written in regard to the profound fissures that characterized this civilization-state when invaders set foot in the medieval period. More copious still are the accounts of fissures that persisted and were aggravated in the days of British occupation. So profound was the sense of loss in the first war of independence in 1857 that the British almost managed to exorcize the national consciousness of our people. Subservience existed aplenty, and it is perhaps thereafter that the hackneyed view of the diffident, emaciated, inanimate and inarticulate Indian took hold.
We as an independent people duly respect those foot soldiers of our national struggle who reposed faith in the creed of armed revolt. When the façade of governance is employed to dispossess a people of their resources, and protests are met not with compensation or negotiation but with the overwhelming might of that government, the calls for the expulsion of the foreigner have merit. In pursuit of that righteous struggle, therefore, armed revolt bears justification.
But to expect a profoundly fissured people to revolt as a single behemoth against foreign tyranny would be exemplary naïveté. In view of the indigence that pervaded our civilization-state in the British Raj, with what authority could we have expected its people to abjure their struggle for daily subsistence and pledge their allegiance to an armed revolt? With what authority could we possibly expect an emaciated, penurious man to care who governs the country at large when basic subsistence is a struggle? We could not justifiably regard them as timorous people. It is in this milieu that an alternative is warranted.
The alternative did indeed emerge in 1885 in the form of the Indian National Congress. At first a clique of the English-educated elite, often well-versed in the law, the character of this body that negotiated with the British for Indian representation in government changed radically with the ascendance of Gandhi as its generalissimo. The mass character that the Congress subsequently embraced was owed principally to Gandhi, a man whose discernment in regard to the “Indian pulse” was perhaps rivalled only by Ambedkar. While Ambedkar opted to reform that Indian pulse in some measure, Gandhi embraced it and crafted a mass appeal with the projection of a saint-like persona. In that sense, the Gandhi-led Congress was the wellspring of Indian nationalism, which by no means insinuates that there were no nationalists before him.
Horrisonant though the utterance of these words may be, had I been born in that paradoxically unfortunate and momentous age with the same temperament I have today, I would have in a heartbeat pledged allegiance to Gandhi and not to the eminences of armed revolution. This would appear unbelievable in light of my sympathetic view of the contemporary cultural resurgence condensed in the word “Hindutva”, the philosophy of which regards righteous fight as an inalienable component. But to me, an education — ideally in England — would have assumed priority, so as to gain meaningful employment as a barrister or an ICS officer, whereafter I could be of intellectual service to the Congress.
My respect for the revolutionaries who reposed faith in insurrection is premised not solely on their valiance and intrepidity which I would likely have been in want of, but also on their willingness to be soldiers in the cause of freedom for this nation. They demonstrated firm cognizance of the distinct nationhood this civilization-state had always had and deserved, and no nation could adequately be served without soldiers, without that verve of warriorship. No, this nation of ours was not merely a consortium of squabbling groups, but an entity whose national consciousness was merely latent and warranted a revival.
But I might not have had the longanimity to abandon my family, or render them potential sacrificial goats at the altar of anti-colonialism. The families of those leonine men and women who embraced the gallows alone have known and felt the pain of separation. Their endurance cannot adequately be commended.
As we progress and uncover aspects of our historical eminences that could be regarded as egregious, it is reasonable to suppose that those who lived through that era would have discovered these aspects as well. Accordingly, with the repugnance towards appeasement politics that we harbour, I would have been unlikely to obsequiously justify every action of Gandhi and the Congress by extension, my chimerical acceptance of his leadership notwithstanding. Ours ought to be a culture redolent of our historical affinity for debate, for shāstrārtha. We do not spare even those whom we regard as gods. The historicity of Shri Rāma exiling Sītā Maa aside, we do encourage questions as to the appositeness of his purported action. Rāma is regarded as Maryādā Purushottama — the Supreme Man who exemplifies Honour and Righteousness — and is nonetheless subject to scrutiny. By contrast, the eminences of our freedom struggle are regarded as humans; fallible and prone to flaws, and are as such not immune to scrutiny.
Their inability to prevent the Partition warrants a separate and scholarly debate, in particular light of their pusillanimity in regard to Islamism, but we cannot dispossess them of their pivotal role in cultivating the verve of nationalism.
In conclusion, it is apt to say that nationalism is unifying only inasmuch as it is characterized by a firm faith in the future of a nation. It is an invigorating sentiment that leads an emerging country to believe, “we, too, can earn a place at the high table of powerful nations” or that leads an already powerful but somewhat static country to resolve, “we will not acquiesce on the world stage.” Beyond that sentiment, there emerge differences in ideas and approaches in the realization of that future.
We bear the responsibility of reconciling this inevitable resurgence of cultural nationalism with extensive international engagement; greater embrace of private industry, science and merit; an overhaul of our education system; mitigating greatly the deficiencies in our judiciary and law enforcement; far greater militarization; and more autonomy to our servicemen in uniform to respond with force in light of such attacks as threaten our security. It is contingent on us to ensure that our nationalism neither devolves into national inebriation nor exacerbates into jingoism. In developing and honing adroitness necessary for that purpose, we must utilize the wisdom left behind by our forefathers to the fullest. And then, we could pay true homage to them all as the world comes to realize that the age is truly “India’s Century”.
